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YOUR BOYS 



GIPSY SMITH 



YOUR BOYS 



fi BY 



GIPSY SMITH 



WITH A FOREWORD 

BY The Bishop of London 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



y 



>«>' 



COPYRIGHT, 1918. 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



E^FR 13 iSiS 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©GU494573 



FOREWORD 

I AM writing this during an air raid at 12.30 at 
night, and I have just finished a Foreword for 
the Bishop of Zanzibar's new and tender little book. 
He has been a water-carrier for the British force in 
German East Africa, and Gipsy Smith has just come 
from the trenches in France. 

You would not expect the two books to be similar, 
but they are: they are both about "Jesus." This devo- 
tion to "Jesus" birds all time Christians together, 
and one day will bring us all more visibly together 
than we are now. I love this breezy little book of 
Gipsy Smith's; it is not only full of the love of 
"Jesus," but love of our "our boys." They are 
splendid. I spent the first two months of the war 
as their visiting chaplain — went out to give them 
their Easter Communion the first year of the war at 
the Front. Gipsy Smith and I made friends to- 
gether, speaking for them at the London Opera 
House on the great day of Intercession and Thanks- 
giving we had for them when the King himself called 
us all together. 

Then I like the common sense of it! You must 
have robust common sense if you are going to win 

V 



vi Foreword 



"our boys." Anything unreal, merely sentimerftal, 
washy, they detect in a moment. You must draw 
them ^*with the cords of a man and the bonds of 
love," and those who read this book will find many a 
hint as to how to do it, 

A. F. London. 



YOUR BOYS 



YOUR BOYS 



I HAVE just come back from your boys. 
I have been living among them and talk- 
ing to them for six months. I have been under 
shell fire for a month, night and day. I have 
preached the Gospel within forty yards of the 
Germans. I have tried to sleep at night in a 
cellar, and it was so cold that my moustache 
froze to my blanket and my boots froze to 
the floor. The meal which comforted me most 
was a little sour French bread and some Swiss 
milk and hot water, and a pinch of sugar when 
I could get it. 

There are Y.M.C.A. marquees close to the 
roads down which come the walking wounded 
from the trenches. In three of these marquees 
last summer in three days over ten thousand 
cases were provided with hot drinks and re- 
freshment — free. And that I call Christian 
work. You and I have been too much con- 
cerned about the preaching and too little about 
the doing of things. 



10 Your Boys 



A friend of mine was in one of those mar- 
quees at the time, and he told me a beautiful 
story. Some of the men sat and stood there 
two and three hours waiting their turn, and 
the workers were nearly run off their feet. 
They were at it for three nights and three 
days. There was one fellow, a handsome chap, 
sitting huddled up and looking so haggard and 
cold, that my friend said to him, 

"I am sorry you have had to wait so long, 
old chap. We're doing our best. We'll get to 
you as soon as we can." 

"Never mind me," said the man; "carry on!" 

As the sun came out he unbuttoned his coat, 
and when the coat was thrown back my friend 
saw that he was wearing a colonel's uniform. 

"I am sorry, sir," said my friend. "I did 
not know. I oughtn't to have spoken to you 
in that familiar way." 

"You have earned the right to say anything 
you like to me," said the Colonel. "Go right 
on." 

And then my friend said, "Well, come with 
me, sir, to the back, and I will get you a cup 
of coffee." 



They are Great ii 

"No, not a minute before the boys. I'll take 
my turn with them." 

That's the spirit. Your boys, I say, are 
great stuff. They have their follies. They 
can go to the devil if they want to, but tens 
of thousands of them don't want to, and hun- 
dreds of thousands are living straight in spite 
of their surroundings. They are the bravest, 
dearest boys that God ever gave to the world, 
and you and I ought to be proud of them. If 
the people at home were a tenth as grateful as 
they ought to be they would crowd into our 
churches, if it were for nothing else but to pray 
for and give thanks for the boys. 

They are just great, your boys. They saved 
your homes. I was recently in a city in France 
which had before the war a population of 
55,000 people. When I was there, there were 
not 500 people in that city — 54,500 were home- 
less refugees, if they weren't killed. I walked 
about that city for a month, searching for a 
house that wasn't damaged, a window that 
wasn't broken, and I never found one. The 
whole of that city will have to be rebuilt. A 
glorious cathedral, a magnificent pile of mu- 
nicipal buildings, all in ruins; the Grande 



12 Your Boys 



Place, a meeting-place for the crowned heads 
of Europe, gone! "Thou hast made of a city 
a heap" — a heap of rubbish. Your city would 
have been like that but for the boys in khaki. 

I was saying my prayers in a corner of an 
old broken chateau, the Y.M.C.A. headquar- 
ters for that centre, with my trench-coat but- 
toned tight and my big muffler round my ears. 
Presently I heard some one say — one of the 
workers — "A gentleman wants to see you, sir," 
and when I got downstairs there was a General, 
a V.C., a D.S.O., and a Star of India man — 
a glorious man, a beautiful character. He was 
there with his Staff-captain, and he said, 

''IVe come to invite you to dinner to-morrow 
night, Mr. Smith. I want you to come to the 
officers' mess." 

"What time, sir?" I asked. "I cannot miss 
my meeting at half -past six with the boys." 

".Well, the mess will be at half -past seven. 
We will arrange that." 

"Before you go, sir, I should like to ask why 
you are interested in me." 

"Well, I'll tell you, if you wish," he said. 
"Men are writing home to their wives, moth- 
ers, sweethearts, and they are talking about a 



A New Power 13 

new power in their lives. *We have got some- 
thing that is helping us to go straight and play 
the game,' they write. And so," said the Gen- 
eral, "we should like to have a chat with you." 

I went the next night, and for an hour and 
a half I preached the Gospel to those officers. 
It was a great chance; and it was the result 
of the note-paper which I have sometimes given 
out for an hour and a half at a time to your 
boys. 

There are lots of people think you are not 
doing any spiritual work unless you are sing- 
ing, "Come to Jesus." Put more Jesus in 
every bit of the day's business. Jesus ought to 
be as real in the city as in the temple. If I 
read my New Testament aright, and if I know 
God, and if I know humanity, and if I know 
Nature, then that is God's programme. God's 
programme is that the whole of life should be 
permeated with Christ. 

God bless the women who have gone out to 
help your boys. Women of title, of wealth and 
position, serving God and humanity behind 
tea-tables. 

In one of our huts I saw a lady standing 
beside two urns — coffee and tea. She was 



14 Your Boys 



pouring out, and there were 150 or 200 men 
standing round that hut waiting to get served. 
The fellows at the end were not pushing and 
crowding to get first, but waiting their turn. 
They are more good-natured than a religious 
crowd waiting to get in to hear a popular 
preacher. I have seen these people jostle at 
the doors. 

But your boys don't do that. They just sing, 
"Pack up your troubles," and wait their turn. 

Well, these boys, wet and cold, were wait- 
ing for a cup of coffee, and one of those red- 
hot gospellers came along, and he said, "Sister, 
stop a minute and put a word in for Jesus. 
This is a great opportunity." 

"But," she replied, "they are wet and tired; 
let me give them something hot as soon as I 
can." 

"Oh! but let's put a word in for Jesus," 
urged this chap. 

Then a bright-faced soldier lad called out, 
"Guv'nor, she puts Jesus in the coffee." That 
is what I mean when I say you have got to 
put Jesus into every bit of the day's work. 



Fruits of the Spirit 15 

I have never once been asked by your boys 
to what Church I belonged. They don't stop 
to ask that if they believe in you. They want 
the living Christ and the living Message. It 
isn't creed; it's need. And don't you get the 
notion that the boys can't be reached, and don't 
you think that the boys are hostile to Chris- 
tianity. They are not. I won't hear it with- 
out protest. The best things that the old Book 
talks about are the things the boys love in 
one another. They don't always think of the 
Book, but they love the fruits of the Spirit in 
one another. They love truth, honour, cour- 
age, humility, friendship, loyalty. And where 
do you get those things? Why, they have 
their roots in the Cross — they grow on that 

Tree. 

• ••••• 

I had a dear friend who won the M.C. — a 
young Cambridge graduate. He was all-round 
brilliant. He could write an essay, preach a 
sermon, sit down to the piano and compose 
an operetta. The boys delighted in him. He 
would always be at the front. He would al- 
ways be where there was danger. I was talk- 
ing about him one day in one of the convales- 



i6 Your Boys 



cent camps, and two of the boys said to Tne 
afterwards, 

"You have been talking about our padre. 
We loved him. We were with him when he 
was killed, for the shell that killed him wounded 
us. Every man in the battalion would have 
laid down his life for him." 

This old world's dying for the want of love. 

There are more people die for the want of 

a bit of it than with overmuch of it. Don't 

stifle it — let it out. 

• ••••• 

"I am afraid," said a padre to me once, "the 
boys are sceptical." 

"Come with me to-morrow," I answered. 
"I'll prove to you they are not sceptical." 

We were half an hour ahead of time and 
the hut was crowded with eight hundred men. 
They were singing when I got in — something 
about "an old rooster — as you used to." 

Do you suppose I had no better sense than 
to go in and say, "Stop this ungodly music?" 
You can catch more flies with treacle than with 



vmegar. 

I looked at the boys and said, "That's great, 
sing it again." 



''Sing it Again" 17 

And I turned to the padre and asked, *'Isn't 
that splendid? Isn't that fine?" 

While we were waiting to begin the meet- 
ing, I said, "Boys, we must have another." 

*'One of the same sort?" they shouted. 

"Of course," was my reply. And they sang 
"Who's your lady friend?" and when they had 
sung that, I called out, "Boys, we will have 
one more. What shall it be?" 

"One of yours, sir." 

I had not trusted them in vain. 

I said, "Very well, you choose your hymn." 

"When I survey the wondrous Cross" — that 
was the song they chose. 

And they sang it all the better because I 
had sung their songs with them. Before we 
had got to the end of the last verse some of 
those boys were in tears, and it wasn't hard 
to pray. It isn't far from rag-time to "When 
I survey the wondrous Cross." 

When they had finished the hymn I said, 
"Boys, I am going to tell you the story of my 
father's conversion." For I had to convince 
my padre friend that they were not sceptical. 
I took them to the gipsy tent and told them 
of my father and five motherless children, and 



i8 Your Boys 



of how Jesus came to that tent, saving the 
father and the five children and making preach- 
ers of them all. 

I said, ''Did my father make a mistake when 
he brought Christ to those five motherless chil- 
dren?" And the eight hundred boys shouted, 
"No, sir." 

"Did he do the right thing?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"What ought you to do?" 

"The same, sir." 

"Do you want Jesus in your lives?" and 
every man of the eight hundred jumped to his 
feet. 

You say they are sceptical where Jesus is 
concerned. I'll tell you when they are scep- 
tical — when they see the caricature of Jesus 

in you and me. 

• ••••• 

I was, as I have said, under shell fire for a 
month in one place — night and day for a 
month — and never allowed out without a gas- 
bag round my neck. I slept in a cellar there 
at night when I did sleep — only 700 yards from 
the Germans — and, as I have said before, it 
was cold. 



Up Against It 19 

When the thaw set in, I put a couple of 
bricks down and put a box-lid on top, so that 
I could stand in a dry place. We had two 
picks and two shovels in that cellar in case 
anything happened overnight. I have been 
up against it. Whenever I talked to the boys 
there they sat with their gas-bags round their 
necks, and one held mine while I talked. It 
was quite a common thing to have something 
fall quite close to us while we were singing. 

Imagine singing "Cover my defenceless 
head," just as a piece of the roof is falling in. 

^^~ In death's dark vale I fear no ill 

With Thee, dear Lord, beside me — 

then another crash! That makes things real. 
Every word was accompanied by the roar of 
guns — the rattle of the machine gun and the 
crack of the rifle. We never knew what it 
was to be quiet. 

A shell once came and burst just the other 
side of the wall against which I was standing 
and blew part of it over my head. I have suf- 
fered as your boys have, and I have preached 
the Gospel to your boys in the front line. I 
long for the privilege of doing it again. 



20 Your Boys 



If I had my way I'd take all the hest preach- 
ers in Britain and I'd put them down in 
France. And if the church and chapel goers 
grimibled, I'd say, "You're overfed. You 
can do without a preacher for a little." And 
if they were to ask, ''How do you know?" I 
should reply, "Because it's hard work to get 
you to one meal a week. You only come once 
on a Sunday and often not that. That's how 
I know you are not enjoying your food." 

I love talking to the Scottish boys — the kil- 
ties. Oh! they are great boys — the kilties. 
When the French first saw them they didn't 
know what they were, whether they were men 
or women. 

"Don't you know what they are?" said a 
bright-faced English boy. "They are what 
we call the Middlesex." 

You can't beat a British boy, he's on the 

spot all the time — "the Middlesex!" Some of 

you haven't seen the joke yet. 

• ••••• 

I once went to a hut just behind the line, 
within the sound of the guns. Buildings all 
round us had been blown to pieces. The leader 
of this hut was a clergyman of the Church of 



Fetching the Munsters 21 

England, but he wasn't an ecclesiastic there, 
he was a man amongst men, and we loved him. 

"Gipsy Smith," he said, ''I don't know what 
you will do; the boys in the billets this week 
are the Munsters — Irish Roman Catholics. 
You would have got on all right last week; 
we had the York and Lancaster s." 

"Do you think they will come to the meet- 
ings?" 

"I don't know," he replied; "they come for 
everything else ! They come for their smokes, 
candles, soap, buttons — bachelor's buttons — 
postcards, and everything else they want. But 
whether they will come for the religious part, 
I don't know." 

"Well," I said, "we can but try." 

It was about midday when we were talk- 
ing, and the meeting was to be at 6.30. 

"Have you got a boy who could write a bill 
for me?" I asked. 

"Yes," he said, "I've got a boy who could 
do that all right." 

"Print it on green paper," said I. 

Why not ? They were the Munsters. Why 
shouldn't we use our heads? People think 



22 Your Boys 



mighty hard in business, why shouldn't we 
think in the religious world? 

"Just say this and nothing more," I said. 

'' 'Gripsy Smith will give a talk in the Hut to- 
night at 6.30. Subject — Gipsy Life,' " 

I knew that would fetch them. 
At half-past six the hut was crowded with 
eight hundred Munsters. If you are an old 
angler, indeed if you know anything at all 
about angling, you know that you have got to 
consider two or three things if you are to stand 
any chance of a catch. You have got to study 
your tackle, you have got to study your bait, 
you have got to study the habits of your fish. 
When the time came to begin that meeting, 
one of the workers said, 

"Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?" 
"No, no," I replied; "that's the wrong bait." 
Those Munster boys knew nothing about 
hymn-books. We preachers have got to come 
off our pedestals and not give our hearers what 
we want, but the thing that will catch them. 
If a pretty, catchy Sankey hymn will attract 
a crowd, why shouldn't we use it instead of 



"Are we Down-hearted?'' 23 

an anthem? If a brass band will catch them, 
why shouldn't we play it instead of an organ? 

"Keep back those hymn-books," I said. 
"They know nothing about hymn-books." I 
had a pretty good idea of what would have 
happened if those hymn-books had been pro- 
duced at the start. 

I got on that platform, and I looked at those 
eight hundred Munsters and said, "Boys, are 
we down-hearted?" 

''No" they shouted. 

You can imagine what eight hundred Mun- 
sters shouting "No" sounds like. They were 
all attention instantly. I wonder what would 
happen if the Vicar went into church next 
Sunday morning and asked the question, "Are 
we down-hearted?" I knew it would cause a 
sensation, but I'd rather have a sensation than 
a stagnation. 

Those boys sat up. I said, "We are going 
to talk about gipsy life." I talked to them 
about the origin of my people. There's not 
a man living in the world who knows the origin 
of my people. I can trace my people back to 
India, but they didn't come from India. We 
are one of the oldest races in the world, so old 



24 Your Boys 



that nobody knows how old. I talked to them 
about the origin of the gipsies, and I don't 
know it, but I knew more about it than they 
did. I talked to them about our language, 
and I gave them specimens of it, and there I 
was on sure ground. It is a beautiful lan- 
guage, full of poetry and music. Then I 
talked about the way the gipsies get their liv- 
ing — and other people's; and for thirty min- 
utes those Munsters hardly knew if they were 
on the chairs or on the floor — and I purposely 
made them laugh. They had just come out 
of the hell of the trenches. They had that 
haunted, weary, hungry look, and if only I 
could make them laugh and forget the hell 
out of which they had just climbed it was re- 
ligion, and I wasn't wasting time. 

When I had been talking for thirty minutes, 
I stopped, and said, "Boys, there's a lot more 
to this story. Would you like some more?" 

"Yes," they shouted. 

"Come back to-morrow," I said. 

I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you 
leave off when fish are hungry they will come 
back for more. For six nights I told those 
boys gipsy stories. I took them out into the 



God in Nature 25 

woods. We went out amongst the rabbits. I 
told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me — 
so fond that they used to go home with me! 
I took them through the clover-fields on a 
June day and made them smell the perfume. 
I took them among the buttercups. I told 
them it was the Finger of Love and the Smile 
of Infinite Wisdom that put the spots upon 
the pansy and the deep blue in the violet. And 
then we went out among the birds and we saw 
God taking songs from the lips of a seraph and 
wrapping them round with feathers. 

And the boys saw Jesus in every butter- 
cup and every primrose, and every little daisy, 
and in every dewdrop, and heard something 
of the song of the angels in the notes of the 
nightingale and the skylark. Oh! Jesus was 
there, and they felt Him, and they saw Him. 
I took them amongst the gipsy tents, amongst 
the woodlands and dells of the old camping- 
grounds. They walked with Him and they 
talked with Him. I didn't use the usual 
Church language, but I used the language of 
God in Nature and the boys heard Him. 

Towards the end of the week one of those 
Munster boys came and touched me and said. 



26 Your Boys 



"Your Riverence! Your Riverence!" he says. 
"You're a gentleman." 

I knew I had got that boy. 

Now, if you are an old angler you know 
what happens if you begin to tug at the line 
the first time you get a bite. When you hook 
a fish, if he happens to be a Munster, you have 
got to keep your head and play him, let him 
have the line, let him go, keep steady, no ex- 
citement, give him play. I gave him a bit of 
line, that young Munster. I thanked him for 
his compliment and then walked away- — with 
my eyes over my shoulder, for if he hadn't 
come after me I should have been after him. 

Presently he pulled my tunic and said, 
"Won't you give me a minute, sir?" 

"What's the trouble?" I said. 

"Sir," he said, with a little catch in his voice 
that I can hear now, "you've got something I 
haven't." 

"How do you know?" I asked. 

"It's like the singing of a little song, and 
it gets into my heart. I want it. Won't you 
tell me how to get it? I want it." 

"Sonny," I said, "it's for you. You can 
have it at the same price I paid for it." 



A New Song 27 

*'Begorra," says he, "you will tell me to give 
up my religion, you will!" 

I said, "If God has put ami:hing in your 
life that helps you to be a better and a nobler 
and a braver man, He doesn't want you to give 
it up." 

"He doesn't?" he asked. "^^Tiat am I to 
give up, then?" 

And I replied, ''Your sin." 

The boy said again, "You're a gentleman." 

If I had said one word about his religion or 
his creed, my line would have snapped and I 
would have lost my fish. 

That night, when all the boys had gone, we 
got into a corner and we knelt down, and when 
he went he said, "I've got it, sir. I've got the 
little song — and it's singing." 

At one of my meetings the boys were four 
thousand strong and the Commandant of the 
camp was to preside. As they say in the Army, 
he had got the wind up. He did not know me. 
When he saw the crowd there he began to won- 
der what was going to happen. He called one 
of the officers to him, and said, 

"I don't know what he's going to do. I hope 



28 Your Boys 



he's not going to give us a revival meeting or 
something of that sort. I hope he knows that 
one-third of these fellows are Roman Catho- 
lics." 

Well, of course I knew, and I was laying 
my plans accordingly. What right have you 
or I when we have got a mixed crowd like that 
to try to cram our preconceived programme 
down everybody's throat? The officer, who 
was one of my friends, said to the Colonel, "I 
don't think you need trouble, sir. He's all 
right, and knows his job." 

When we were ready, I went to the Colonel, 
and said, "We are quite ready to begin, sir." 

The Colonel rose and announced, "Officers, 
non-commissioned officers, and men, I now in- 
troduce to you Gipsy Smith, who will per- 
form." 

Now, the first thing I wanted to do was to 
disarm all prejudice in the mind of both officers 
and men. So I said, "Are you ready, boys?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well, we'll have our opening hymn, 'Keep 
the home fires burning.' " 

And didn't those boys sing that! Some of 
them were smoking, and I wasn't going to tell 



Round Mother's Knee 29 

them not to smoke. That would have put their 
backs up. They were British boys and they 
knew what to do when the right moment came. 
And so I said, "Boys, you sang that very well, 
but you were not all singing. Now, if we have 
another, will you all sing?" And they an- 
swered, "Yes." I knew if they sang they 
couldn't smoke. So we had "Pack up your 
troubles," and this time every smoke was out 
and every boy was singing. "We'll have an- 
other," said I, when they had finished; "we'll 
have — 

'Way down in Tennessee 

Just try to think of me 

Right on my mother's knee.' " 

I knew if I got them round their mothers' 
knees I should be all right. 

"Now, boys," I said, "what am I to talk to 
you about?" I let them choose their subject 
very often. 

"Tell us the story of the gipsy tent," they 
called out. 

And there I was at home, and it was all 
right, and for an hour I told them the story 
of how grace came to that gipsy tent — the old 
romance of love. 



30 Your Boys 



"Now, boys, I'm through," I said when I 
had spoken for an hour — and they gave me an 
encore. When I had finished my encore, the 
dear old Colonel got up to thank the "per- 
former" — and he couldn't do it; there was a 
lump in his throat and big tears were rolling 
down his cheeks. 

"Boys, I can't say what I want to, but," said 
he, "we have all got to be better men." 

The Gospel was preached in that hut in a 

different way from what we have it preached 

at home, but we got it in, and the thing is to 

get it in. 

• ••••• 

I was talking behind the lines to some of 
your boys. Every boy in front of me was go- 
ing up to the trenches that night. There were 
five or six hundred of them. They had got 
their equipment — they were going on parade 
as soon as they left me. It wasn't easy to talk. 
All I said was accompanied by the roar of the 
guns and the crack of rifles and the rattle of 
the machine guns, and once in a while our faces 
were lit up by the flashes. It was a weird sight. 
I looked at those boys. I couldn't preach to 
them in the ordinary way. I knew and they 



Singing the New Song 31 

knew that for many it was the last service they 
would attend on earth. I said, 

"Boys, you are going up to the trenches. 
Anything may happen there. I wish I could 
go with you. God knows I do. I would if 
they would let me, and if any of you fall I 
would like to hold your hand and say some- 
thing to you for mother, for wife, and for lover, 
and for little child. I'd like to be a link be- 
tween you and home just for that moment — 
God's messenger for you. They won't let me 
go, but there is Somebody Who will go with 
you. You know Who that is." 

You should have heard the boys all over 
that hut whisper, "Yes, sir — Jesus." 

"Well," I said, "I want every man that is 
anxious to take Jesus with him into the trench 
to stand." 

Instantly and quietly every man in that hut 
stood up. And we prayed as men can pray 
only under those conditions. We sang to- 
gether, "For ever with the Lord." I shall 
never sing that hymn again without a lump in 
my throat. ]\Iy mind will always go back to 
those dear boys. 

We shook hands and I watched them go, 



32 Your Boys 



and then on my way to the little cottage where 
I was billeted I heard feet coming behind me, 
and presently felt a hand laid upon my shoul- 
der. Two grand handsome fellows stood be- 
side me. One of them said, 

**We didn't manage to get into the hut, but 
we stood at the window to your right. We 
heard all you said. We want you to pray for 
us. We are going into the trenches, too. We 
can't go until it is settled." 

We praye4 together, and then I shook hands 

with them and bade them good-bye. They 

did not come back. Some of their comrades 

came — those two, with others, were left behind. 

But they had settled it — they had settled it, 
• . . • . • 

Two or three days after that I was in a hos- 
pital when one was brought in who was at that 
service. I thought he was unconscious, and I 
said to the Sister beside me, "Sister, how bat- 
tered and bruised his poor head is !" 

He looked up and said, "Yes, it is battered 
and bruised; but it will be all right, Gipsy, 
when I get the crown!" 

One night I had got about fifty boys round 
me in a dug-out, with the walls blown out and 



Getting the Crown 33 

bits of the roof off. I had taken some hyinn- 
sheets, for I love to hear them sing. I never 
choose a hymn for them — I always let them 
choose their own hymns. There is wisdom in 
that. If they have asked for something and 
don't sing it, I can come down on them. 
Among the great hymns they choose are these : 

"Jesu, Lover of my soul," 

and I have heard them sing, 

''Cover my defenceless head," 

with the shells falling close to them. I have 
heard them sing, 

"I fear no foe . . ." 

with every seat and every bit of building round 
us rocking with the concussion of things. And 
then they will choose : 

**The King of Love my Shepherd is," 
"The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want," 
"Abide with me," 
"There is a green hill far away," 
"Rock of ages, cleft for me," 



34 Your Boys 



and the oue they love, I think, most of all is, 
'*When I survey the wondrous Cross." 

Thrjse are the h\TTjns they sing, the great 
hymns of the Church — the hymns that all 
Christian perjpJe sing, alx^ut which there is no 
quarrelling. It's beautiful to hear the b^-A'S. 

7'hat night I said, "I have brought .v;rne 
hymn-sheets. I thought we might have s^-^rne 
singing, but I'm afraid it's trx> dark*" 

Instantly one of the bws brought out of his 
tunic about two inches of candle and struck a 
match, and in three minutes we had about 
twenty pieces of candle burrjing. It was a 
weird .sr:ene. 

After the hymns I began to talk, and the 
candles burnt lower, and some of them flick- 
ered out, and I could see a boy here and there 
twitch a bit of candle as it was going out. 

I said, ''Put the candles out, boys. I can 
talk in the dark." 

It was a wonderful service, and here and there 
you could hear the boys sighing and cr\'ing as 
they thought of home and father and mother. 
It isn't difficult to talk to boys like that. 



In the Quiet Room 35 

There is no hymn of hate in your boys' 
hearts. 1 have known them take a German 
prisoner even after he has played the cruel 
thing; but there! he looked hungry and 
wretched, and in a \'iiw minutes they have 
shared their rations and cigarettes with him. 
I call that a bit of religion l)reaking out in an 
tjnlikely place. The leaven's in the lump, 
thank God! 

I was speaking at a convalescent camp. 
YjWqtY one of the hoys had been l^adly mauled 
and mangled on the Somme. This particular 
day I had about seven or eight hundred listen- 
ers. It was evening, and when 1 had talked to 
the boys, I said, 

*'l wonder if any of you would like to meet 
me for a little prayer?" 

And from all over the camp came the an- 
swer, "Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir." 

There was a big room there — we called it a 
quiet room — and so J asked all the boys who 
would like to see me, just to leave their seats 
and go into this room. J went to them and 
said, 

*'Yoii fiave elected to come here to pray, so 



36 Your Boys 



we will just kneel down at once. I am not go- 
ing to do anything more than guide you. I 
want you to tell God what you feel you need 
in your own language." 

The prayers of those hoys would have made 
a hook. There were no old-fashioned phrases. 
You know what I mean — people hegin at a 
certain place and there is no stopping them 
till they get to another certain place. One of 
these boys began, "Please God, You know I've 
been a rotter." That's the way to pray. That 
boy was talking to God and the Lord was very 

glad to listen. 

• ••••• 

I was talking to one boy — an American; he 
was a little premature, he was in the fight be- 
fore his country. 

"Sonny," I said, "you're an American?" 
"Yes, sir. I was born in Michigan." 
"Well, what are you doing, fighting under 
the British flag?" 

"I guess it's my fight too, sir. This," he 
said, "is not a fight for England, France, or 
Belgium, but a fight for the race, and I 
wouldn't have been a man if I had kept out." 



A Fight for the Race 37 



I told that story to one of our Generals who 
died last September. 

**Ah!" he said, "that f)oy got to the bottom 
of the business. It's for the raee. It's fol* the 
race." 

"Are you a Christian?" I asked. 

"No," he answered; **but I should like to be 
one. I wasn't brought up. I grew uj), and I 
grew up my own way, and my own way was 
the wrong way. I go to church occasionally — if 
a friend is getting married. I know the story 
of the Christian faith a little, but it has never 
really meant anything to me." 

Then he contimicd slowly, "On the Somme, 
a few hours before 1 was l)adly wounded" — he 
j)ut his hand in his pocket and drew out a little 
crucifix — "1 picked up that little crucifix and 
I put it in my pack, and when I got to hos- 
pital 1 found that little crucifix on my table. 
One of the nurses or the orderlies had imt it 
there, thinking I was a Catholic. But I know 
I'm not, sir. 1 am nothinc/. I have been look- 
ing at this little crucifix so often since I was 
wounded, and I look at it till my eyes fill with 
tears, because it reminds me of what He did 



38 Your Boys 



for me — not this little bit of metal, but what 
it means." 

I said, "Have you ever prayed?" 

He replied, "No, sir. I've wept over this 
little crucifix — is that prayer?" 

"That's prayer of the best sort," I said. 
"Every tear contained volumes you could not 
utter, and God read every word. He knows 
all about it." 

I pulled out a little khaki Testament. 
"Would you like it?" I said. "Would you 
read it?" 

He answered, "Yes," and signed the decision 
in the cover. 

When I shook hands with him there was a 
light in his eyes. Have you ever seen the light 
break over the cliff -tops of some high moun- 
tain peak ? Have you ever watched the sun kiss 
a landscape into beauty? Have you ever seen 
the earth dance with gladness as the sun bathed 
it with radiance and warmth? Oh, it's a great 
sight ; but there's no sight like seeing the light 
from Calvary kiss a human face as it fills the 
heart with the assurance of Divine forgiveness. 



Bound for Blighty 39 

One hundred and fifty-two thousand cups of 
tea and coffee are given away monthly at one 
railway-station. I once happened to be at a 
railway-station on the main lines of communi- 
cation. There are women working there, 
women of position and means, working at their 
own expense. I have seen rough fellows go 
up to a British woman behind a counter — the 
first time they have seen a British woman for 
months — and I have heard them say, "Madam, 
will you shake hands with me?'* I saw an Aus- 
tralian do that. He got her hand — and his 
was like a leg of mutton — and he thought of 
his mother and his home-folk. He forgot his 
tea. It was a benediction to have that woman 
there. 

Well, on this occasion two of these ladies 
said to me, "Gipsy, we're having a relief train 
pass through to-morrow, and one comes 
through up and one comes through down." 

"I'll be there," I said. 

The train that was coming from the front 
we could hear before we could see it. And it 
wasn't the engine that we heard, because that 
came so slowly, but I could hear the boys sing- 
ing as they came round the curve, 



40 Your Boys 



"Blighty, Blighty is the place for me." 
We served them with tea and coffee, French 
bread a yard long, and candles and matches 
and "Woodbines," and then we got that crowd 
off— still singing "Blighty." 

They had been gone about five minutes when 
the other train from Blighty came in. We 
couldn't hear them singing. They were quiet 
and subdued. We served them with coffee and 
tea, candles, bootlaces, and smokes, and then, 
as they had some time, they started having a 
wash — the first since they left Blighty. The 
footboard of the train was the washstand, the 
shaving-table, and the dressing-table. But 
they didn't sing. 

I saw in a corner of that little canteen a pile 
of postcards, and I said, "Who says a postcard 
for wife or mother?" 

Somebody asked, "Who's going to see them 
posted?" 

I said, "I am. You leave them to me." 

They said, "All right," and I began to give 
out the postcards. 

I started at one end of the train and went 
on to the other end. In the middle I found 
two carriages full of officers. 



Postcards for Home 41 



"Gentlemen," I said, '*will you please censor 
these postcards as I collect them, and that will 
relieve the pressure on the local staff, for I 
don't want to put any extra work on them?" 

"Oh, certainly," they answered, and I sent 
a dozen or twenty up at a time to them, and 
in fifteen minutes that train was steaming out 
of the station and the boys were singing, 
"Should auld acquaintance." 

When they had gone I collected the post- 
cards that had been written and censored — and 
there were 575. To keep the boys in touch 
with home is religion; to keep in their lives 
the finest, the most beautiful home-sentiment 
that God ever gives to the world is a bit of re- 
ligion — pure and undefiled. 

How gloriously brave are the French women 
and Belgian women ! I was talking to one in 
London — a young girl not more than eighteen 
or nineteen. She was serving me in a restau- 
rant, and I saw she was wiping her eyes, so 
I called her to me and said, "What^s the mat- 
ter, my child?" 

She answered, "Sir, I came over on the 
boat from Belgium early in the war, and my 



42 Your Boys 



mother and sisters got scattered, and I have 
never seen or heard of them since." 

And the Madame of the restaurant came to 
me a little while afterwards, and said, "We 
dare not tell her, but they were all killed." 

Many people at home don't realise what is 
going on. Some are in mourning, some have 
lost boys, some have lost husbands, brothers, 
but we have not suffered as others have suf- 
fered. I was riding in a French train a few 
weeks ago. Beside me sat a lady draped in 
mourning. I could not see her face, it was 
so thickly veiled with crape. Beside her was 
a nurse, and the lady wept, oh, so bitterly! I 
cannot bear to see anybody weeping. If I see 
a little child crying in the street I want to com- 
fort it. If I see a woman crying in the street 
I want to comfort her. God has given me a 
quick ear where grief is concerned — and I am 
thankful. I wouldn't have it otherwise — 
though I have to pay for it. 

That woman's tears went through me. 
Every little while she was counting in French, 
''Un, deuoc, trots, quatre, cinq" — then she 
would weep again and then she would count. 

I said to the nurse, "Nurse, what's the trou- 



Counting Her Boys 43 

ble?" and she said, "Sir, her mind has given 
way. Before the war she had five handsome 
sons, and one by one they have been killed, 
and now she spends her time counting over 
her boys and weeping." 

And all that is for you and for me! What 
sort of people ought we to be, do you suppose? 
Are we really worth — that? 

• ••••• 

I was talking to some Canadians one night — 
and the Canadians are fine boys. I was put- 
ting my foot on the platform, just about to 
begin, when a bright young Canadian touched 
me and said, *'Say, boss, can you shoot quick?" 
and I replied, 

*'Yes, and straight." 

"Well," he said, "you'll do." 

I had a great time with those fellows. Hun- 
dreds of those Canadian boys stood up to say, 
"God helping me, I am going to lead a better 
life!" — hundreds of them. And then I put 
another test to them. "I want you all to prom- 
ise," I said, "that you'll kneel down and say 
your prayers to-night in the billet, and those 
of you who will promise to do that come up 



44 Your Boys 



and shake hands with me as you go out." I 
was kept one half -hour shaking hands. 

Now, there were nine fellows sleeping in 
one billet and not one knew the other eight had 
been to the meeting. They all got mixed up, 
but all the nine came up to shake hands, and 
the one that got back to billets first told the 
story afterwards. This one had made up his 
mind he would kneel down and say his pray- 
ers, but when he returned he found there was 
no one there. Somehow he felt different then 
— ^he felt he couldn't do it. He was more 
afraid of nobody than he would have been of 
somebody. Then just suppose the others came 
back and found him kneeling there ! 

"I funked it," he said. "I got under the 
blanket, and tried to say my prayers under the 
blanket, but it wouldn't work. Then I heard 
one man come into the room, then two, three, 
four, five, six, seven, and eight. And the eighth 
man was the champion swearer of the com- 
pany." 

"Boys," said this man, "did you hear him?" 
"Yes," they said, "we heard him." 
And the little chap under the blanket said 
"Yes" too. 



The Champion Swearer 45 

"Well, I shook hands with that man, and 
I promised him for my mother's sake that I'd 
kneel down and say my prayers to-night.'* 

And the little chap under the blanket 
jumped up, blanket and all, and said, ''So did 
I. I'm with you." 

And the others said, "So did we." 

"Well," the last comer said, "the best thing 
we can do is to kneel down now and say a little 
prayer." 

So they all knelt down, and they each said 
a little prayer — I wish I had a record of those 
prayers — and they finished up with "Our 
Father." 

Then the champion swearer said, "Boys, I've 
cut it all out: no more drink — not another 
drop." 

And they said, "All right, we are with you. 
We'll cut it out." 

Then he said, "I've cut something else out. 
No more swearing." 

Eighty-five times out of every hundred that 
the boys in France use a swear- word they mean 
no more than I do when I say, "Great Scott." 

"Do you, boys?" I ask them. 

"No, sir," they invariably reply. 



46 Your Boys 



"Well, then, why do you use these swear- 
words?" 

And then I've got them and, out of their 
own mouths, they are condemned. I tell them 
it is bad form, and I say, ''Cut it out." 

These boys made a solemn compact that 
night that the first man who swore should clean 
all nine guns, and before the week was out my 
champion was cleaning nine guns. 

But those eight boys didn't go back on him. 
They were sporty. 

I have seen a little bird's nest all broken 
with the wind and torn with the storm, and two 
or three little eggs, with a few wet leaves over 
them, addled and cold and forsaken, and my 
little gipsy heart cried over those poor little 
motherless things, for I was motherless too. 
And up in a tree I have heard a thrush singing 
the song of a seraph and I have said, as I 
looked at the eggs, "You would have been 
singers too, but you were forsaken." 

These boys — they did not forsake their 
chum. They said, "Buck up, old boy. We'll 
help you." 

"No," he said. "This is my job." 

So they stood by him and cheered him on. 



Cheering Him On 47 

People, I say again, don't die of overmuch 

love, but for the want of a bit of it. These 

boys stood by my champion swearer, and when 

he was putting the polishing touches on the 

last gun he stood up, his face radiant, like a 

man that has fought a battle and won : "Boys, 

this is the last gun I shall clean for anybody 

under these conditions, because, God helping 

me, I'm going to see this thing through." 

And he is seeing it through. 

• ••••• 

I was at a home for limbless men the other 
day — there are over one hundred and eighty of 
them in that home. I held my hand out to 
shake hands with the first two men I met, and 
they laughed at me. I looked down for their 
hands — they hadn't got one between them! I 
took the face of one of those dear boys and I 
patted it. I wanted to kiss it with gratitude. 
I wonder how you feel! 

I walked round amongst those boys — one 
hundred and eighty limbless! I found one 
boy without legs and without an arm. He was 
just a trunk, and his comrades, those who 
could, were carrying him around. He was 
the sunshine in the whole place — not a grouse. 



48 Your Boys 



They are doing no grousing — your boys there. 
When they see you they just say, "Cheerio." 

A friend of mine, a minister, went to see one 
of these boys, and he was wondering what he 
could say to him; he thought he had got to 
cheer him up. The boy looked at the padre 
and said, 

"Guv'nor, don't get down-hearted. I am go- 
ing to make money out of this j ob. Why, I shall 
only want a pair of trousers with one leg, and I 
shall only want a coat with one sleeve, and I 
shall only want a pair of boots with one boot." 

It reminds me of the question I once asked : 
"Sonny, what struck you most when you got 
in the trenches?" and the reply came sharp, 

"A bit of shrapnel." 

Another of your boys, just picked up in the 
trenches by those tender fellows, the stretcher- 
bearers, those men with the hands of a woman 
and with the heart of a mother — God bless 
them ! — called out as they came to him, "Home, 
John*' And when he was passing the officer 
and they were carrying him into the Red Cross 
train, he cried, ''Season." He had two gold 
stripes already. That's the spirit of your boys. 



Not Afraid to Die 49 

There was a dear old Scotchman from Aber- 
deen. A telegram had come to that granite 
city to say that his boy was badly wounded, 
and he ran all the way to the station and 
jumped into a train without stopping to put 
on a collar. You don't think of collars when 
your boys are dying. I saw him when he 
landed. It was my job to help him. The dear 
old fellow was just in time to see his boy die — 
and afterwards he came and laid his head on 
my shoulder and he sobbed. And I wept too. 
He was seventy. 

Presently he said, "It will be hard to go 
home and tell mother that her only boy has 
gone, but I've got a message for her. 'Father/ 
my boy said, 'tell mother I am not afraid to 
die. I have found Jesus. Tell mother that.' " 

There are some people who think you are 
not doing Christian work unless you have a 
hymn-book in one hand and a Bible in the other 
and are singing, "Come to Jesus." I am glad 
I haven't to live with that kind of people. I 
call them the Lord's Awkward Squad. 

If you take "firstly," "secondly," "thirdly," 
out to the front with you, by the time you get 
to thirdly the boys will be in the trenches. I 



50 Your Boys 



never take an old sermon out with me to 
France. I write my prescription after IVe 
seen my patients. 

I was talking to a thousand boys one day. 
"Boys," I said, "how many of you have writ- 
ten to your mother this week?" 

Now, that's a proper question. I wonder 
what would happen if the preacher stopped in 
his sermon next Sunday morning and said, 
"Have you paid your debts this week?" "In 
what sort of a temper did you come down to 
breakfast this mornrug?" 

If a man's religion does not get into every 
detail of his life he may profess to be a saint, 
but he's a fraud. Religion ought to permeate 
life and make it beautiful — as lovely as a breath 
of perfume from the garden of the Lord. 

The boys have given me the privilege of talk- 
ing straight to them. "If you don't write, you 
know what you'll get," I said, and I began to 
give out the note-paper. I can give boys writ- 
ing-paper and envelopes and sell them a cup of 
coffee or a packet of cigarettes with as much 
religion as I can stand in a pulpit and talk 
about them. Why, my Master washed peo- 



A Letter to Mother 51 

pie's feet and cooked a breakfast for hungry 
fishermen. He kindled the foe with the hands 
that were nailed to a tree for humanity. There 
are no secular things if you are in the spirit of 
the Master — they are all Divine. 

I went on dealing the note-paper out, and 
presently a clergyman came to me and said, 
"Gipsy Smith, a man in my room wants to 
see you.'* 

When I got there, I saw he was crying, 
sobbing. 

"I am not a kid," he said ; "I am a man. I'm 
forty-one. You told me to write to my mother. 
Read that," he said, throwing down a letter; 
and this is what I read: 

"My dear Mother, 

"It's seven years since I wrote you last. 
I've done my best to break your heart and to 
turn your hair grey. I've lived a bad life, but 
it's come to an end. I have given my heart to 
God. I won't ask you to believe me, or to for- 
give me. I deserve neither. But I ask for a 
bit of time that I may prove my sincerity. 
"Your boy still, 

"Jack." 



52 Your Boys 



"Shall I put a bit at the bottom for a post- 
script?" I asked. "But first of all, let us pray.'' 

We got on our knees, and I said, "You be- 
gin. 

"I'm not used to it," he replied. 

"Begin; never mind how. Did you ever 
pray?" 

"Yes," he said; "I prayed as a child." 

"Start with that, then — He loves cradle 
faith." 

It took him some time, but presently he be- 
gan with his mother's prayer, "Jesus, tender 
Shepherd, hear me." When he got to the third 
line there was a big lump in his throat and one 
in mine, and then he gave me a dig with his 
elbow and said, "You'll have to finish" — and 
I finished. 

I put my postscript to that letter. "God 
has saved him," I wrote. "Believe him. Write 
and tell him you forgive him." 

And when that mother got that she knew 
that giving out note-paper was religion. 

I was in a cemetery just behind the lines, 
walking among the graves of our dear lads 
who have fallen, and weeping for those at home 



Somebody Cares 53 

who weep over graves that they will never see. 
There I found an old soldier who had been to 
the woods and had cut a big bundle of box 
trimmings. He was setting a little border of 
box round the graves. 

"But," I said to him, "they won't strike. 
It's not the right time of year — and the 
ground's too dry." 

"I know, sir," he said, "but it will look as 
if somebody cares." 

God's jewels lie deep, and if you will dig 
deep enough you will find them — so I took the 
trouble to dig a little deeper. I said, "Nobody 
will see them here." 

"Yes, sir, the angels will. You taught me 

to think like this in one of the meetings in the 

huts, and since I can't do any more in the 

fight" — for he was disabled — "I am putting 

in my time caring for the boys' graves, and if 

the wives and mothers don't see them — well" — 

and his face lit up with a radiance that I can't 

put into words — "the angels will, sir." 
• ••«•• 

I have had your boys say to me, "Gipsy, does 
it mean Blighty, or does it mean West?" I 



54 Your Boys 



have had to say to some of them, "It doesn't 
mean Blighty.'' 

A sister took me to see one dear fellow. He 
was blown up by a mine, both his legs and his 
arm were broken. 

"I was lying out there, after the mine blew 
up, for twenty-four hours, and I was half 
buried," he told me. 

Fancy lying out there in No Man's Land 
for twenty-four hours with both legs broken 
and an arm! 

I said, "Sonny, you have had a rough time." 

And this was his reply: "They copped me, 
worse luck, before I had a pot at them." 

You can't beat these boys of yours, the na- 
tion's boys, the best boys of our homes, the 
flower of our manhood, the noblest and the 
dearest that God ever gave to a people. These 
boys, they are worth everything in the world, 
and there is nothing you and I can do will 
ever repay them for what they are doing for 
you and for me. 

• ••••• 

When the great end of the day comes, the 
greatest joy of all will be the joy of knowing 
you have tried to make somebody else's life 



The Greatest Joy of All 55 

happy. It is the flowers that you have made 
grow in unlikely places that will tell — not how 
much money you have made, not how big a 
house you have lived in, not how popular you 
were in the world of letters, of science, of 
finance, but — how many burdens have you 
lifted ? How many dark hearts have you light- 
ened? You can't do too much for your boys. 
Remember what they are doing for you. Re- 
member the lives that are being laid down for 
you. 

I shook hands with a boy a little while ago 
in Scarborough, and he said, "I believe I hold 
the record for having lost most in the war. I 
have lost five brothers, my sister was killed in 
the war, and my mother died of a broken heart 
through grief, but," he said, ''I'll give my next 
week's pay, sir, towards this new hut." 

Another boy, when I was making my ap- 
peal, said, "I've been wounded and I am dis- 
charged. I'll give my next week's pay," and 
up jumped a war-widow and she said, "I'll 
give my next week's pension." 

I was talking in Doncaster, and I had a 
batch of wounded men from one of the local 
hospitals — a batch of twenty dressed in blue — 



56 Your Boys 



and every one of them gave something; and 
when I looked round and said, "Boys, why are 
you giving?" one said, "Well, sir, we're grate- 
ful for what it did for us when we were there." 

People say, "What are you going to do with 
the huts after the war?" We want to pick 
them up, and bring them back to this country 
and put one do^vn in every parish in the land, 
so that when the boys do come back they will 
still have the Y. M. C. A. hut to go into, so 
that they can still keep up the spirit of unity. 

Woe be to the man who goes into the hut and 
tries to preach sectarianism. The Y. M. C. A. 
is creating a spirit of unity amongst the boys, 
and that is going on all the time. I want the 
limitations to vanish at home. I want the ec- 
clesiastical barriers to go. When you get to 
Heaven the Lord will have to give Gabriel a 
job to introduce many Christians to one an- 
other. You should see your boys, how they 
mix up. They come in — the Roman Catholics, 
the Church of England, and the Nonconform- 
ists and Plymouth Brethren and Salvation 
Army, and all sorts — you don't know who's 
who. We are not quarrelling over religions at 



What the Y. M. C. A. Stands For 57 

the front — ^we are fighting and dying for the 
folks who are doing that at home. 

Let's stop our religious nonsense. Re- 
ligion's too big to be confined within our four 
little walls. If our Church rules are so rigid 
that they won't let us come together, then our 
Church rules are wrong. God never made 
rules which divide men — all God's laws unite. 
Christ died that we might be one, and it is time 
we got together. Your boys are bigger than 
your Churches. You and I have got to rise to 
the opportunity. God help us to do it ! 

Somebody asks, "Why does the Y. M. C. A. 
always want more new huts? Why not move 
the old ones?" What will the boys do who 
take the places of those who have gone for- 
ward ? When the line goes forward, it does not 
come back — not in these days; it abides — and 
the boys who come up as a support, they take 
the huts the other boys leave. 

The Y. M. C. A. stands for everything to 
your boys. It is their club, their church, their 
recreation-room. It is their canteen — dry can- 
teen, you may be sure — it is their reading- 
room, it is their smoking-room, and why should 



58 Your Boys 



not the Church of Jesus Christ provide places 
of recreation for its own people? Why should 
it leave the public-house and the theatre to do 
it all ? We have lost lots of people because we 
have been so slow — we have lost them, you and 
I, but we are learning sense in these days, and 
the Y. M. C. A. has come to the help of the 
Churches, to be the communication-trench be- 
tween the Churches and the people. 

It is doing magnificent work. 

As I write these lines I think of one dear 
boy, a young sergeant, a Public- School boy. I 
had watched him grow up. I knew his home, 
and as he leaned against me he said, "Gipsy, 
I'm homesick; I want my mother," and then, 
with a sob, he said, "Tell me more about 
Jesus." 

I was able to talk to him about his mother 
because I had lost mine, and just because I 
love Jesus I was able to talk to him about the 
blessed Jesus Who comes into a man's heart 
when he is sad, lonely, and homesick, and helps 
him. 

He was lying on a stretcher, and it was my 
privilege to hold his hand and to kiss him for 
his mother. 



Dying for Freedom 59 

"Gipsy," he said, "does it mean West?" 

I said, "Sonny, it means West." 

As I held his hand it flickered for a moment 

and he said, "I am not afraid to go. I know 

Christ. I found Him in your meetings, and — 

it's great to die, for freedom." 

And it was a great thing for me to be with 

your boy then. 

I thank my God upon every remembrance 
of your hoys. 



THE END 



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